This is where the misunderstanding lies. Confessional Lutheranism doesn't hold to any origins "model". Rather, it is one of the few Christian traditions that is willing to say, "Scripture is silent on issue X, therefore we are also silent on the matter."
Issues of creation create a complex blend of a belief in contextual interpretation (Genesis is history) and silence (the Bible doesn't explicitly address inheritable mutation of DNA).
Hi resha,
I understand, but I don't believe that the Scriptures are silent on the subject. Therefore, while it may be where some denominations feel that there may be some misunderstanding, I don't happen to agree.
I find that the Scriptures are fairly clear and quite concise on the subject. The law of the Sabbath is based on the creation event having taken 6 days. Jesus declared that Adam was the first man. According to God's historical account of the creation event, Adam was created on day 6. Then we find a fairly concise account of the passage of years from Adam to Noah to Abraham and beyond.
However, some fellowships and individual believers believe that because we don't understand 'inheritable mutation of DNA, or that God didn't apparently discuss with us this issue, then the account must be suspect. Friend, God hasn't told you how molecules cling to each other to form various compounds, but we know that they do. God hasn't told you the nuts and bolts of how He divided indivisible water, but He has said that He parted a sea and I believe that He did.
I come from a school that happily accepts that we don't have near enough information to understand the 'how' that God did a lot of things that He has claimed to have done. However, I don't allow my ignorance of such things to issue a denial of 'what' God has said that He has done.
God has said that in one bitter night He had an angel of death pass through and kill every firstborn child of both men and beast in just a singular city on the face of the earth. I have no idea how God actually caused that to happen. God has told us that on a particular day He caused a shadow cast by the sun to go backwards 10 steps. I have no idea how God did that. But I'm confident that He did.
However, as to the time and circumstance of the creation event, I believe that God has given us plenty of information to understand when it happened. I understand that we live in a created 'realm'. A physical construct of atomic matter of solids and liquids that was all, according to the Scriptures, created by God. In fact, the Scriptures declare that there is nothing that exists that God didn't create. So, when I begin to understand that God and the awesome power and abilities that He has, psssssh, Stopping the sun in the sky is child's play for Him. Parting a sea is as easy for Him as just telling the sea to part and it does! Creating all of the millions of stars and planets and asteroids and nebulae and galaxies that make up all that is the universe in which we reside in a matter of the time it takes for the earth to complete one full rotation upon its axis...that's just all in a days work for the God who tells us about Himself in His word.
I believe all of that because I believe that God created this entire realm for the sole purpose of creating man. A creature of his love and desire that He will ultimately share an eternal existence with. Where He will be our God and those who love Him will be His people. God's entire purpose in creating this realm is for that eventuality. Because I believe that God created this realm of existence just so this creature that He has crafted with love and desire can live, I have no problem understanding that this all came to exist in mere hours. The whole of the Scriptures declares that truth. God created. He called out of that creating a people to be His people. He used those people to deliver to all mankind His word and His promises and His plan for the salvation of men. Then, in the fullness of time. When all had been recorded just as God desired that it be, Jesus came! Now, according to the writers of the new covenant, God is waiting patiently for some to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Then we're all going to be just amazed as we watch Him roll it all up like a scroll pretty much in reverse as how He laid it all out.
That's what I believe and I'm fairly confident that's what the Scriptures tell me is the truth of the matter about this realm in which we now live.
God bless,
In Christ, ted